On the first day of a four-day visit to Italy, President Mary McAleese, speaking in the Italian business capital of Milan, last night underlined the "significant growth in business relations" between Ireland and Italy.
Addressing a trade dinner attended by representatives of Enterprise Ireland, An Bord Bia, Tourism Ireland and IDA Ireland as well as by leading Irish companies and their Italian partners, the President highlighted the growth of "two-way traffic" between Italy and Ireland in the fields of both commercial activity and tourism.
Some 248,000 Italians visited Ireland in 2006, Mrs McAleese said, marking a 33 per cent increase on 2005 while bilateral trade last year amounted to almost €5 billion.
Italy is now Ireland's fifth-largest export market in mainland Europe, with 60 Italian companies operating in Ireland.
Ireland last year exported €380 million worth of livestock and meat products to Italy while trade between the two countries also focuses on pharmaceuticals, electronics, engineering and consumer products.
"It is a delight to be in Milan on the first day of a four-day visit to Italy and I thank you for the warm and generous welcome and for the chance to meet in person so many representatives of leading Irish companies and their Italian partners and customers.
"Ireland and Italy have always enjoyed strong historic and commercial relations. We have a high degree of cultural compatibility and since we get on well together, it is no surprise that we like doing business together," said the President.
On Friday, she will address the European Bishops Conference in Rome on a day when she is also due to have an audience with Pope Benedict XVI.
Today the President visits Bobbio in northern Italy, the town where the Irish monk, St Columbanus, founded an important monastery.
This evening, Mrs McAleese will pay a courtesy visit to Italian state president Giorgio Napolitano.